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mernil writes "A former US nurse has been charged with two counts of aiding suicides on the Internet, US officials say. William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, is accused of encouraging the suicides of Mark Drybrough from Coventry, UK, in 2005 and Canada's Nadia Kajouji in 2008. Melchert-Dinkel, from Minnesota, allegedly posed as a female nurse, instructing people in suicide chatrooms how to take their lives. He reportedly admitted helping five or fewer people kill themselves. Some legal experts say it could be difficult to prosecute Melchert-Dinkel under a rarely used law because he allegedly only encouraged the victims to kill themselves, without physically helping them to take their lives."

Yes, this guy is pretty sick. From the summary I thought this was about assisted suicide of the terminally ill. The article makes it clear it was encouragement of depressed, but physically healthy, people to commit suicide.

Parent post makes a telling point. The more so since the the accused had been trained as a nurse, which includes training in using communications skills and presentation of self to alter a patient's mood or self-assessment. In the nursing program I attended this training came under several titles: "therapeutic use of self", "active listening skills", etc. These can be very powerful techniques especially when working with a subject who is in a suggestible state of mind-- and there is definitely a potential f

"If it had been an ugly person would he have been less of a "sick fuck"- even marginally?"

Of course. Out of the top reasons to off yourself (financial problems, relationship, school/job problems, etc), I'd say "ugly" is one of the better reasons, wouldn't you? Most of those other problems come and go, but "ugly" is pretty much forever. That is one reason I could understand, didn't you learn anything from The Twilight Zone? [youtube.com]

"Yeah it's okay, apparently, for the unsightly to make away with themselves."

Not only is it okay, but it's probably one of the best reasons to off yourself.

Out of the top reasons to off yourself (financial problems, relationship, school/job problems, etc), I'd say "ugly" is one of the better reasons, wouldn't you? Most of those other problems come and go, but "ugly" is pretty much forever. That is one reason I could understand.

I hate how people in the 21st century still think mental diseases are somehow “not real” diseases. And that one would be “physically healthy” and “just depressed”!

Guys, just because you can’t see it, it’s not not real!

Let’s make the Data comparison: If data had short circuits in his positronic brain, causing him to act “all weird”, would you say he is defective, or physically healthy?Now if those short circuits were software-caused?

There is freedom of speech, as long as nobody listens. If too many people start listening to you and doing something based on your speech, all your freedoms - not just speech - will soon start being questioned and curtailed all over. Take a look at anyone saying something unpopular, whether right or wrong. In the case of speech encouraging violence, death, etc, if people listen, there will be quite a reaction. Don't ask me if it's right or wrong. I don't think it's that simple a question, with black and white answers for every case.

It's contextual. Speech doesn't mean anything that is a vocalization. Vocalizations can be speech, or they can be intended to create immediate, injurious actions, bypassing other people's rational cognitive function.

There's nothing wrong with using the word "Fire" but shouting it in a crowded theater is not protected free speech. Similarly, telling somebody to drop dead is generally protected by your right to free speech, sure, but if you go up to somebody standing on a ledge, who is clearly mentally ill and considering suicide and you tell *them* "Drop dead, you worthless sack of shit. Nobody likes you and nobody will care if you are dead", well you are no longer expressing yourself in a manner intended to convey ideas to a rational actor (speech), but rather trying to cause an imminent action that you know will be fatal to another person.

What it does not give this guy is the right to say to that girl "hey we can die together it's alright" when he had no plans whatsoever to go through with it.

So "meet me in heaven" is a bribe today, is it? He isn't saying "trust me with your money" or "trust me with your life", he's saying "I promise if you kill yourself then I will too". How does it make a difference to the other person that he doesn't go through with it, once they're already dead? Will they get the seventh circuit court of the afterlife to press charges?

Sounds like virtually every religion to me. "Hey, waste all your time and money and reputation on our doctrine until you die, and you will be

There is one problem with complete freedom of speech.Trough advances in social engineering, rhetorics, and (mass) psychology, speech has become an effective tactical weapon of mass-control like never before.

The list of problems is endless. For example, if you repeat something often enough, people start believing and defending it, even if they previously saw the opposite to be true with their own eyes. There were studies about this.Nobody is completely free from this. Not even you and me.It’s the whole

And that's a problem... why? Seriously, if someone wants to kill themself, as long as they are not leaving a burden on the people they are leaving behind, what's the big deal?

The problem is that many people who are suicidal are just suffering from mental problems that could be cured. Allowing someone to commit suicide or assisting them when the only cause for the suicide is a treatable mental illness is the same as allowing someone to die when they have a medical problem that is lethal, but only when untreated.

If society tries to ban that THEY MUST help the person in every way and totally support them their entire lives - and if they are not prepared to do that they should shut up and back off and not prevent people from ending their lives if that is what they feel they must.

From what I know, from a humanist philosophy point of view, any human being needs to have the right to full control of their body. So if someone wants to do something insane with their body, they are entitled to it. Encouraging mutilation or death however, would not be humanist. So if you decide you want to die, fine. If you want to preach people should want to die, need help to die, should be sold equipment, manuals, videos, books, have suicide parties, suicide lounges, suicide workshops, suicide encouragement boot camps, pro suicide marketing campaigns, etc, all of which is speech, well, that would be psychological violence. Thats ideals, philosophy, morality, etc however. The field of law is another matter, and how to word the law so it's not abused either way is not so easy.

Sometimes there is no difference between the simple truth and what you call psychological violence. When a person faces nothing but grim days, poverty, pain,abuse and disease recommending suicide should not be called a crime. There are some people in such rotten conditions that they really need to die. Pointing that out to them is not always a hostile act. I'm not sure that the law should ever get involved in such an issue.

Suicide of a person of a mainstream western culture is the ultimate act of selfishness.

That doesn't mean that it may not be appropriate in some instances. It means that in western cultures the decision to suicide is usually made at a time when the person is seriously under estimating his value to his circle of family, friends, and acquaintances.

Other cultures value things differently. Suicide in some eastern cultures is apparently sometimes regarded as a way of protecting the person's social circle from

So it's selfish to kill yourself... presumably because other people rely on your emotionally (at the very least).

So, if someone wants to kill themselves, it's wrong because other people might get really upset over it? So if someone is sick of life, in pain, or just plain emotionally damaged, they ought to stick around for others' sakes? Doesn't that make it selfish on the part of the people that rely on them emotionally instead?

I understand the guy my wife took off with left a note on his computer's Notepad that became very depressed and was found dead with his soda loaded up with a bunch of sleeping tablets.

Based on your other posts, I would guess that your wife ran off with this guy because you are a self-important jackass who thinks he knows everything and treats everyone with a different opinion as if they are stupid. People like you should kill themselves. You are useless drain on the world's carbon cycle.

It probably should be a recognised right, but you do realise that won't matter much in this case? The accused allegedly misrepresented himself in various ways, also called fraud. You have a right to buy real estate, and if you already own it, to sell it, but if somebody offers to sell you the Brooklyn bridge, the case doesn't hinge on anybody's rights being limited by a fraud prosecution. This is not a case such as Dr. Kevorkian's, where there may be a legitimate first amendment issue, but the sort of case

Prepare for the onslaught of "but suicide is cowardice" posts. IMO, it takes either a person of incredible will (overlooked), or extreme depression (always assumed).

I was never seriously depressed, even after withstanding several (literal) life-changing events that would drive most people mad and permanently change their careers/public life. Suicide was (is) one legitimate option, and yet I could never bring myself to even seriously think about it; I consider it cowardice on my part to not embrace it: brave

William Melchert-Dinkel was a nurse. He could identify and take advantage of vulnerable people, who were clinically depressed and unable to make rational, informed decisions. He tricked them into making irrational uninformed decisions.

It's as if you had a curable cancer and he told you, "I'm a nurse. Your cancer is incurable. You're going to die painfully. You'd be better off killing yourself now."

This is similar to the situation that doctors deal with every day in which a patient who is dying has to decide whether they want to stop treatment.

A patient has to be capable of making a rational decision. Some drugs and medical conditions make people depressed (independent of the normal depression that comes from dealing with the situation of an illness). Regularly, people decide during an illness that they don't want to live, change their mind after they get better, and are glad they didn't die.

Depression itself can be a clinical condition. People who are treated with drugs or talk therapy often get better, sometimes dramatically so. If a drug can make such a dramatic difference, that without the drug your individual choice is to die, and with the drug your individual choice is to live, that shows you how unreliable and irrational individual choice is.

I would reluctantly concede that people who don't want to live simply because the burden of life is too much, and who have been treated unsuccessfully for depression, physical pain, or any other cause, have a right to kill themselves. Quadriplegics have a legal right to refuse feeding. But that's only after they've exhausted every other option, which wasn't the case here.

We give people the right to make an individual choice to die, but not when they're obviously incapable of making a rational decision. Most of us want the government to interfere and stop us from killing ourselves when we're temporarily irrational.

So threatening to kill someone is covered? Wrong. How about slanderous speech? Nope. Nor is counseling to kill one's self. From the way you talk I suspect you are one of those phony Christians, or even a legalist. If so, here is something to set you straight:

Matthew 25
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43I

And if the person is depressed, contemplating suicide but not likely to, except you talk them into it, you have killed them. Mental illness as much as people try to rationalize it here, means the person is not rational. This case is like a con-man who likes money and will bilk people out of material wealth. Except this con-man talked people into killing themselves because he valued the experience of watching people die. This is a form of homicide. If I talk someone into killing another person, whether for p

So, do you think it can be wrong to advise someone to commit suicide if the commitment itself is not wrong? I'm sorry, that was my question. It has nothing to do with the particulars of the case reported here.

"If I talk someone into killing another person, whether for pay or other incentive, I am just as guilty of the murder."

I can think of cases where this is not true. Say I am the person in charge of a justified execution (say the person has to be executed or some divine punishment will come down from

I don't think the one encouraging others to commit suicide is any more rational than the victim. Either punish them both, or give both treatment. He probably need as much educational camp as the suicidal.

Equal treatment for both. I agree fully. I understand that two of the guy's victims are dead.

So threatening to kill someone is covered? Wrong. How about slanderous speech? Nope.

You could make that answer to any claim of free speech. But if you accept free speech, the burden is on you to demonstrate that advice on suicide is an exception. If you reject free speech, we have nothing to discuss.

Nor is counseling to kill one's self. From the way you talk I suspect you are one of those phony Christians, or even a legalist. If so, here is something to set you straight:

I assert that people who don't want to live for any reason, even if they have never been diagnosed or treated for anything, or have been diagnosed but refused treatment, have a right to kill themselves. They have no duty to stay alive.

Looks like we have a freshman philosophy major here.

Where does this unqualified "right" to kill yourself come from? Certainly not from U.S. law. Every state has restrictions on the circumstances under which one person can kill another person or himself. Doctors who have to deal with these problems every day have established guidelines which are close to, but not identical to, the laws. That's what I'm going by.

There are many medical conditions, including antibiotics, epilepsy drugs, anesthetics, brain infec

Where does this unqualified "right" to kill yourself come from? Certainly not from U.S. law.

No, of course not. It's a natural right, one which the law can protect or infringe but not create.

And where does this "natural law" come from? Freshman philosophy class.

Only in philosophy classes will people say that you have a right to help a mentally incompetent person commit suicide. In the real world, people overwhelmingly reject such things, and the law tries to reflect that.

Talking about bare assertions, how do you decide that natural law gives you the right to do something? Aristotle, who made some offhand comments that people use to justify natural law, believed that slavery was OK. Does natural law give you the right to own slaves? Who decides?

You just decide yourself, right? Natural law says anything you want it to say.

And where does this "natural law" come from? Freshman philosophy class.

As George Carlin put it."You have no rights"

You have as much right to kill yourself, convince someone else to kill themselves as you have to speak your mind or stab me in the face.

Only in philosophy classes do people even try to remain consistent.In the real world people don't attempt any such thing.Overwhelmingly they simply decide everything case by case based on how it makes them feel rather than based on any coherent framework of what you have a right to and what you do not.

If you can find a person guilty for giving advice on ending the lives of two people over an acute period of time...... How liable should liqour, cigarette, and high carb + fat + low nutrition food producers be?

Is the only difference that she helped them intentionally take their lives, while the enablers of unhealthy lifestyle consumables help people take their lives over the course of years?

Either put the peddlers of these long-term killing substances behind jail, or get your hands off of my rights to do w

Seriously, if they want to reduce murder and violence, they should start where it happens most, where it's planned and practiced in greatest numbers. Governments and corporations, mostly. Everywhere and always. Pass a law saying "no torture, violence or killing, no exceptions for anyone", and presto, you get quite the revolution and shove society into dealing with the future. Lots of questioning and crisis getting there, but a real future nonetheless.

Yup, that's exactly the big question. How do stop the use of force and violence without using it yourself. Basically you can't I think, at that point it's sometimes too late, your options are more limited. You need to plan and educate slowly to reduce it gradually. Violence starts at people's minds, hearts, or pain, and that's where it needs to be prevented without resorting to physical force.

Taking on planning to reduce and eliminate all violence ends up with discussions altering all of society. Economy, to reduce suffering and violence caused by it. Education, to reduce violence caused by ignorance. Health care, to reduce pain and anger. Communities, to get things done with less suffering. Politics and law, to reduce war and police abuses. And on and on. It's the invisible detail lurking behind everything that everyone ignores and laughs at.

Umm, that is pretty much the law anyway, unless you wish to ban using violence in self-defense or in law enforcement or in war which is crazy.

Trouble is, everyone with a reasonable lawyer and PR firm uses violence "in self defense", and most often gets away with it. Disagree, become a threat, they defend themselves. The use of force and violence is now institutionalized, sanitized, and invisible. Corporatized. The poor or ignorant, without PR, get involved in "violence". Others get 'briefly disrupted' by (insert undesirable element) and then 'return to normal operation.' In other unrelated news on the next week, there was an accident.

except that the person here isnt a "she" only pretending to be a female, and made suicide pacts with these "victims" to encourage them to do so. It could be argued that without this persons "advice" there people could very well be alive and happy. They were not terminally ill... there was no counseling to prove they were even clinically depressed... this person coerced these people into suicide for his own entertainment. I have a problem with someone doing something as deceitful and horrible as this.

So the difference being what? One has a single "evil person" who does what they do for their own personal sick joy. The other is a group of people working for a large corporation doing what they do for a paycheck. Single evil deceitful individuals should be held responsible for encouraging bad behavior that could potentially result in death, while groups of people doing the same shouldn't? Or is it simply the suicide is an unacceptable form of bad behavior, and eating scientifically proven unhealthy foo

Obviously I don't agree.The consumables that corporations produce, while being dangerous over the long term, do provide a level of nutrition. In other words, they aren't "all bad". Yes, you could find better nutrition, but it is nutrition nonetheless and therefore help people live. The person in question did nothing to help make a person's life better, just a way to end it.

I guess. Tobacco products provide enjoyment for the tobacco user. This guy provided some le

Obviously I see the difference between them, and several times have noted differences. The thing you seem to miss time and time again is that they don't have to be "the same" to make comparisons. The world isn't black and white which you seem to need to make it into. For me the comparison is enlightening about what we value, what we don't value, who we find responsible, and who isn't responsible. If you try to paint this into black and white terms, the entire point of view vanishes into your dichotomy.

I'll point this out again: the accused has had special training (is an ex nurse) in manipulating the emotions and ideations of others and allegedly used these techniques in his communications with suicide-prone persons to push them toward suicide.

In a fist fight resulting in death from a blow to the head, a person with no training in fighting should be held to one standard, but the martial arts expert should be held to a higher standard, since he could be expected to know of less lethal ways of terminatin

I'll point this out again: the accused has had special training (is an ex nurse) in manipulating the emotions and ideations of others and allegedly used these techniques in his communications with suicide-prone persons to push them toward suicide.

Special training? WTF? He's a nurse, not a shrink. What kind of "special training" does a nurse receive to manipulate emotions and ideations of others? Is psych 101 really considered "special training"?

The law is supposed to define what being a dick means so you can be punished for it. I think I heard of a similar case (probably in another country) where someone got arrested for encouraging suicide. It counts as psychological assault and conspiracy to murder I think.

It's sad that people are being prosecuted for being dicks rather than for breaking actual laws. Mob justice acts with an arbitrary and inconsistent hand, and has no place under the rule of law.

He pretended to be a female nurse in order to instruct others on how to commit suicide.

To clarify, the issue is not that he pretended to be female, but rather that he pretended to be a nurse (although if anyone relied on him being a female for the purpose of committing suicide, it in fact could be an issue).

I'm fairly certain that fraud, especially in the context of pretending to have medical training, is in fact a crime based on actual laws.

Meanwhile, he has been charged with two counts of assisting suicide, not convicted by mob justice (for example, being hanged in a tree without a court hearing). He has a chance to prove that he did nothing wrong, or to be convicted of a crime that has been committed, specifically because of rule of law. Your implication that charging someone with a crime based on valid allegations (in this case, based on the fact that the accused admits to having helped people commit suicide) should be seen as mob justice is patently absurd.

He pretended to be a female nurse in order to instruct others on how to commit suicide.

No, he was goading people into committing suicide by presenting a sympathetic ear, the female bit of course being a big incentive for his lonely victims.

Suicide pacts are fairly common in Japan. You get suicidal people meeting on the net and forming dysfunctional little suicide support groups. They don't want to die alone so they get together to kill themselves, usually C02 poisoning from a charcoal grill. You just go to sleep and don't wake up. Often times the peer pressure of having a group will sweep peo

All your FPS addicts arses are gonna be in jail for not-so-subtly beating people's psyche to a pulp on the interwebs. NO, it was not 'just a game' -- it was meticulously gang-planned, very realistic sadistic, visceral, murder training simulation, with voice torture, body parts, blood sputtering, resulting in very real psychological damage leading directly to depression, lost productivity, income and wages, depression, anger, addiction, violence, murder, and suicides.

While I agree in principle on the absolute-freedom-of-speech idea, there is one difficult question with it. Speech encouraging and promoting violence to be practiced, promoting hatred, planning for weapons gathering, etc. Yes, the crime is in those who practice it, not preach it. But every massacre starts with a few people preaching it, then lots of people going nuts and doing it, with no way or controlling it.

Yes, ideally, combating ignorant speech with intelligent speech rather than censorship is best. Combating violence with law enforcement is best. However if in charge of a situation of a population with low education level, an obviously growing hatred level, several warnings of coming mass murder, weapons gathering, etc, as happened in Rwanda, all motivated by a few nutcases on television programs and radios using their 'freedom of speech' to promote mass murder, well, insisting on their freedom of speech a

Define "go after", you pompous horse-fucking fart-smelling cross-dressing dim-witted thespian, who eats babies and impregnates women of a different race and is a shill for the Pretend-Nurse Unintentional Suicide Encouragement Association? I saw you littering, this person is a litterer and I'm sure I have proof around here somewhere.

So what happens now, how do you "go after" someone? I turn the above paragraph into a commercial and play it on every American Idol commercial break. You are internationally k

Either way, the media is full of lies in ads, programs, news "facts", politics, everywhere. Yes, lying about others (to denigrate them) to the public is against the law, but it does happen often anyway, people with power manage to get away with it. Lying about yourself (self promotion) has some legal limit as well, much lesser, and also happens on a regular basis. I haven't a universal answer for it, but allowing people to say bad things about others when they have no proof does seem like a possible way to

Sic your lawyers on me for using words, which you continually try to say should not be punishable? Or do you mean that when I used words I acted, undermining your argument that the nurse using words was not an action?

Your point is basically that slander and libel are fine until they hurt you, then you have to take legal recourse. I can't believe you don't see how much sense this fails to make. With the current laws, you have a deterrent against libel and slander, so it doesn't happen as frequently. If e

Cami: Well, that’s okay, but most people puss out before doing that. Plus, they don’t wanna leave a terribly messy mess for others to clean up.

Kajouji: I want it to look like an accident. There’s a bridge over the river where there’s a break in the ice. The water is really rough right now, and it should carry me back under the ice, so I can’t really come up for air. And if drowning doesn’t get me, hopefully the hypothermia will. Is there anything you want to do before you go? I’m trying to get my affairs in order—cleaning my room, paying off my loan.

Cami: I’ve got everything ready to go. My mom will get my insurance and money, so there will be no worries there. I’ve got my funeral s--- all taken care of. Got rope and stuff ready. Do you have a webcam?

Kajouji: Yes.

Cami: Well, if it comes down to hanging, I can help you with it with the cam. Proper positioning of the rope is important.

Kajouji: Thank you.

Cami: That method is so fast and certain, I can’t think of another way for me. I don’t want to feel nothing.

Assuming you are not trolling, then you ahve a real problem. There is a definite problem with encouraging someone to commit suicide. You not seeing a problem with it shows a complete disconnect with human compassion.

I'd also suggest you probably have problems with relationships in your life which will only get worse as time goes on. Please get professional help.

Assuming you are not trolling, then you ahve a real problem. There is a definite problem with encouraging someone to commit suicide.

I dont see the encouraging part. Some dude wants to kill himself, other dude pretending to be a girl tries to convince him hanging is better than jumping.

You not seeing a problem with it shows a complete disconnect with human compassion.

Compassion? Is that the same compassion that kills abortion doctors?We don't know why he wants to kill himself, we only know that he already is convinced he wants to jump. There is no inciting to commit suicide, rather to do it in a specific way.

I was expecting bullying and/or blackmailing to commit suicide, instead there is only someone giving advice to

I don't think she "committed" to dying until she stood on the bridge above the Rideau and decided to fill her lungs with water.

Here's a quote from the mother of the other guy;

Mark had had a nervous breakdown and he was depressed and incredibly susceptible. This person was there whispering in his ear every time he logged on. In the last email, this person claimed to be a nurse, saying he had medical training, and proposed a suicide pact.

Emphasis mine. The point being, he helped these people make that "commit

"I dont see the encouraging part. Some dude wants to kill himself, other dude pretending to be a girl tries to convince him hanging is better than jumping."He sure as hell isn't discouraging him from committing suicide... or actively seeking police or other authorities to help the other guy out.

Here's an analogy with a less controversial and sympathetic crime:

If someone told you that they were about to murder their girlfriend told you they were going to do it with a knife, if you responded that a baseball b

The girl was seriously ill. Anyone who's dealt with depression has been there, myself very much included. The difference is that when I was there, and I talked with people online, they encouraged me to get help, told me that life was worth living. I was on an edge, and they helped me back off of it. If I had been chatting with him instead, while he pretended to be a medical professional, well then I truly do believe I'd be dead today.
He was trying to encourage her to hang herself on webcam so that he coul

A vast majority of people who were nearly successful in their suicide attempt generally regret having ever gone down that dark path. Often times survivors of bridge jumpings point out years later that they are extremely grateful that their attempt did not succeed. It might be unfair to use bridge jumping as an example though, because that is one of the impulsive types of suicide. Plenty of occasions where people did not plan on jumping off a bridge, they just thought about while crossing and just jumped ove

A vast majority of people who were nearly successful in their suicide attempt generally regret having ever gone down that dark path.

No one who has actually succeeded regrets going through with it. And many who are not successful try again and succeed the next time; those who don't are the only ones you hear from, thus there is some serious systemic bias in any sampling.

You should interview Golden Gate bridge jumpers some time. few of the survivors attempt it again. And most of them end up better off after psychiatric help.I used a very specific example to avoid systemic bias. The only assumption that I have to make is that what makes some people succeed and some don't when they jump off a bridge isn't behavioral. I suspect jumpers survive due to chance and not a lack of resolve in their suicide attempts.